Robert McCahon Dickey arrived at Skagway on
October 9, 1897, to encounter one Captain Jefferson Randolph “Soapy”
Smith, the toughest character in the country, and a renowned
“villainous con-artist.” Smith had arrived just a few weeks prior to
Dickey. Dickey was an incorruptible Presbyterian minister from
Canada. The two men were notorious adversaries in the small gold rush
community. It was just the beginning of Presbyterian influence in
Gold Rush country -- our co-religionists were there from the
beginning; in fact, before the beginning.

The Russians had discovered gold as early as 1832,
but it was ignored in favor of the fur trade. In 1834, Robert
Campbell, a Presbyterian Scotsman, was the first white man to find
evidence of gold in the Yukon. But it was not until 1896, that
another Presbyterian Scotsman Robert Henderson, from Big Island, Nova
Scotia, discovered a rich Klondike deposit, at first credited to
George W. Carmack, Skookum Jim, and Tagish Charlie.

We Americans tend to favor Carmack, Jim and Tagish
as the discoverers. Ours is but one opinion. The Canadian government
has officially proclaimed Henderson as co-discoverer, since it was he
who pointed the way to Carmack in the first place. What we can agree
on is that he discovery was first announced in the Seattle
Post-Intelligencer on July 17, 1897. Presbyterians everywhere perked
up their ears and opened their eyes.

S. Hall Young

Not to lose any time, that same summer the Home
Mission Board of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. invited the
Rev. S. Hall Young of the Presbytery of Wooster and formerly a
missionary in southeastern Alaska (from 1878 to 1888) to head back to
Alaska, only this time to penetrate the Interior to seek out the
seekers of gold -- for God.

At that time it was supposed that the Klondike was
in American territory. Young arrived in Dawson, the center of the
Klondike region, by autumn of 1897, having crossed the Chilkoot Pass
on foot with the other seekers and voyaging down from the headwaters
of the Yukon.

Since 1832, the Church of England had established
missions in what was the Yukon Territory. The Presbyterian Church of
Canada had joined the effort in 1881.

Our man Dickey, not long out of Ireland, was sent
to the Klondike in his second year of theology at Manitoba College.
Enroute to the Klondike, he was ordained at Vancouver. He arrived at
Skagway on October 9, and preached the first Presbyterian service in
the area on October 10, 1897 at Burkhart Hall.

Known for his early ecumenical efforts, Dickey
helped build a Union Church -- involving the Episcopalian, Baptist,
Native Christian Church, Methodist, and Presby-terian communities. He
maintained friendly relations with the Catholics and Jews of the
community, as well. He is also recognized for seeking trained nurses
and other medical personnel for the local hospital.

The later arrival of Canadian Presbyterian
missionaries Andrew S. Grant, John Pringle, John A. Sinclair, and
others augmented Dickey’s efforts.

Meanwhile, during the fall and winter of 1897,
American S. Hall Young organized the Presbyterian Church in Dawson
and also assisted in the establishment of a hospital. When it became
definitely known that the scenes of his labor were not on American
soil, the Canadian Presbyterian Church sent in missionaries to whom
Young turned over the work at Dawson. Eventually, the Skagway work
became American.

In the summer of 1898, Young took a trip down the
Yukon through Alaska, visiting the camps and towns as far as Rampart.
He then returned to the States and urged the Home Mission Board to
send a number of missionaries into the Yukon Valley -- in territory
owned by the United States.

Young spent the winter of 1898-1899 helping the
Board to raise funds and enlist interest in the work for Alaska.
Several men were commissioned to go at once to that distant
field.

Because of the inaccessibility of the country, the
General Assembly of 1899 was petitioned to authorize the erection of
the Presbytery of Yukon. The new Presbytery would include the
pre-existing missions at Point Barrow and St. Lawrence Island and all
north Alaska. The Assembly in Minneapolis granted the petition, May
26, 1899. The new Presbytery was included within the Synod of
Washington.

The first meeting of the Presbytery was held in
Eagle, Alaska, July 26, 1899, and attended by the three of the five
missionaries assigned to the new presbytery. The others were still
enroute or had not heard of the meeting.

The Rev. and Mrs. James W.
Kirk were to remain at Eagle. The Rev. Horatio R. Marsh, MDand the
Rev. Samuel R. Spriggs continued on their way to Barrow, while Young
and the Rev. M. Egbert Koonce, Ph.D. proceeded to Rampart where
Koonce was to labor. Young joined the gold seekers headed for Nome.
At St. Michael he met Dr. Sheldon Jackson, who was making his annual
tour of the schools. Dr. Jackson said, “Hurry on to Nome; you will
find the greatest task of your life in that new camp!”

The Men Take Up Their Task

The Rev. Koonce went Rampart in 1899 but spent the
winter of 1900-01 at St. Michael where he experienced “a good
attendance” at his services. With the military and commercial
companies already leaving, however, it was decided to make St.
Michael an “occasional preaching point." He then went to Teller in
fall of 1901 and returned to Rampart before leaving the field in 1905
for Pittsburgh.

The Rev. E. J. Meacham was serving the people of
Nome in 1901 and in 1914 the Rev. E.N. Bradshaw was serving those in
Ruby.

Challenges and Disappointment in
Nome

The Rev. L.L. Wirt, a Congregational minister, had
arrived in Nome in August of 1899, having passed the Rev. S. Hall
Young at Eagle. The Rev. Wirt looked over the situation and saw the
need for a hospital and a church. He departed for Seattle to raise
the money for both.

In his absence, the Rev. Young arrived -- in the
midst of both gold fever and typhoid fever. A full one-third of the
men in Nome had typhoid and the Rev. Young conducted eleven funerals
in one week. Young was the only minister in Nome for six weeks, when
the Rev. Wirt returned with money and materials for a hospital -- as
well as nurses, medicines, and an additional physician.

The story has it that Wirt was somewhat resentful
of Young but realized that the seriousness of the situation required
their working together. Young was suddenly struck with the disease he
had been fighting and lay ill for seven and a half weeks -- kept
alive by the loving care of the miners, the bartender, and milk from
the only cow in Nome.

During his convalescence, Young received word from
the Presbyterian Mission Board to hand over his work to the
Congregationalists, in accord with the Comity Agreement.

In January of 1900, Young left Nome by dogteam to
the new gold camp at Council, 85 miles northeast. He organized a
mission there that later became a Presbyterian church. When he
returned to Nome in June, the town was swarming with 20,000 gold
seekers -- and an epidemic of smallpox and German measles. Young
opened a tent church -- and both the Congregational chapel and
Young’s Presbyterian tent were filled with eager worshipers. There
were 32 charter members for the Presbyterian church organized there.
The Rev. Luther Scroggs was named stated supply and Young moved
on.

The development of the Presbyterian fieldwork can
be monitored in one way by charting where the Presbytery met each
year. It met at Eagle in July of 1901 and again in Teller in August
of that same year. The 1903 and 1904 meetings were conducted at
Rampart. In 1905, the Presbytery convened in the new church building
at Fairbanks.

The Nome Presbyterian Church was discussed at the
1901 meeting at Teller. Presbytery ordered the Presbyterian Church in
Nome disbanded with the direction that members were to be encouraged
to unite with the Nome Congregationalists. The Rev. Young was to
oversee the transfer.

During the ensuing years, meetings were also held
in Nenana, Cordova, Seward, Knik, and Anchorage. Issues faced by the
Presbytery during these early years centered on obtaining continued
financial support and personnel for the mission work throughout the
territory -- and the opening, closing and re-opening of various
ministries.

The church at Council was declared disbanded at
the 1912 meeting at Cordova.

In 1919, Presbytery heard a brief review of the
fieldwork while meeting at Nenana:

The Rev. Frank H. Spence, MD, was serving the
Barrow mission with great efficiency. The present need there was
for a hospital.

The church at Anchorage was without a pastor
in that the Rev. James L. McBride had left to assume duties as a
chaplain during the war (World War I).

The Rev. John Hughes left Alaska to serve his
country as chaplain in France -- and left the Matanuska
church.

The Rev. A.G. Shriver was faithfully
ministering at Cordova and points outside of town.

The village of Ruby was still vacant and there
were no plans for sending a minister at this time.

The Grace Church was being organized at Nenana
under the guidance of Dr. R.J. Diven. The church had the
distinction of being the only self-supporting church in
Alaska.

At Fairbanks, the Rev. W.S. and Mrs. Marple
were serving in spite of the depressing decline in
population.

The Rev. E.O. Campbell, formerly the minister
on St. Lawrence Island, was serving abroad during the war in his
medical capacity. The field was currently without a
missionary.

What follows is a brief overview of the
churches and/ or mission fields eventually organized in the
interior of Alaska:

First Presbyterian Church of Fairbanks
organized in 1905.

Cordova Presbyterian Church organized in
1909.

Grace Presbyterian Church of Nenana organized
November 24, 1918.

Alaska Highway Ministry began in 1942.

Railbelt Ministry began in 1948.

University Community Presbyterian Church,
College, organized May 11, 1949.

Big Delta United Presbyterian Church organized
at Delta Junction in 1965.

New Hope Presbyterian/Methodist Church, North
Pole, organized July 1, 1978.